Following the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens on 7 February, let me draw your attention to his mysterious activities in the days before his death, aged 58, on Thursday, 9 June 1870. In 1965, the National Library purchased numerous items from the library of G.V. Roberts of Tenby, a keen collector of literary manuscripts. Among those items was a cheque for £21, signed by Dickens on 6 June 1870, made payable to ‘home and sundries’, and cashed at Rochester (NLW MS 19400D).
On the afternoon of Monday, 6 June 1870, the ailing Dickens walked from his home at Gad’s Hill Place into Rochester to post letters. He was observed staring there at a building which would later posthumously appear in his unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Seemingly, he also went into a bank to obtain some cash, the equivalent today of over £1,500 pounds. There is nothing unusual in such behaviour from a wealthy man, but the wider context would seem to suggest that something was afoot …

Claire Tomalin, in her recent biography of Dickens, draws attention to another short journey undertaken by the novelist, this time on the morning of Wednesday, 8 June 1870 – the day of his fatal illness – to visit his neighbour, the landlord of the Falstaff Inn, and to cash a cheque for £22. Having raised £43 (the equivalent of over £3,200 today) during the last 3 days of his life, a substantial amount of money should have been discovered at Gad’s Hill Place when Dickens died that Thursday evening. However, one of the first actions of his housekeeper and sister-in-law, Georgina Hogarth after his death was to write to the family solicitor to say that only £6.6s.3d had been found in the pockets of Dickens’s suit. What had happened to the remaining £36.13s.9d?

Claire Tomalin in The Invisible Woman: the story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens (1991) attempted to construct an alternative narrative to the widely accepted account of Dickens’s last day of consciousness, Wednesday, 8 June 1870. Drawing on some eyewitness accounts, Tomalin suggested that Dickens secretly travelled to London that day to visit his mistress, Nelly Ternan at their house in Linden Grove, where he gave her ‘housekeeping money’. It was there that he collapsed, and from there that he was taken in a closed-carriage to die respectfully at home in Rochester.

The Tomalin theory has been wildly debated, but it seems that the National Library’s cheque may be another of the small pieces that make up a new picture of Charles Dickens’s final days. The recipient of our £21 may well have been the mysterious Nelly Ternan …

Maredudd ap Huw

The collection - during the process of being cleaned and boxed

The records of the Monmouthshire and South Wales Coal Owners Association represent a major source of information for the history of coal mining in Wales and industrial relations in the South Wales coalfield prior to nationalisation.

Founded as the Aberdare Steam Collieries Association in 1864, the Association changed its name to the Monmouthshire and South Wales Coal Owners Association in 1890.  Following nationalisation of the coal industry in 1947, the Association began to wind down its activities and arranged for the transfer of its records to the National Library of Wales.  These came to the Library during the 1940s and 50s.  Listing and cataloguing work was carried out subsequently, but covered only one third of the archive leaving large parts inaccessible and forgotten.  Recently it was decided that, owing to the importance of the collection, the entire archive should be fully catalogued.

Notes describing 'engine dip'

These records form one of the largest archive collections in the Library, containing large series of administrative files, minute books, papers of committees and Conciliation Boards, dispute books, financial records, reports of legal proceedings, bound collections of circulars and press cuttings, scrapbooks, research reports, statistics, photographs, and a significant amount of material relating to the Mining Association of Great Britain. There are also over 60 framed photographs of Chairmen of the Association, and works by early Secretaries, including survey books by Alexander Dalziel.

He produced a survey of Merthyr Vale Colliery, 1878–1879, containing reports and first-hand observations on numerous matters including underground workings, lamp lighting procedures, ventilation, payment of wages, and colliery management.  These surveys also contain reports and plans on matters including the provision of miners’ housing and stable arrangements at pits.  They are interesting for their inclusion of drawings, rough sketches, maps, plans, and photographs.

Plans of miners' houses

Dalziel’s surveys are bound in two volumes and provide his personal insight into varied aspects of colliery operation, such as what machinery was utilised, what (if any) safety measures were being investigated and implemented, reflecting general working conditions in the South Wales coalfield.  They are unique by nature and complement the more formal surviving records of the Association, providing a rich dimension to the collection as a whole.

The collection is currently being catalogued.

Lorena Troughton

Hoddinott scrapbooks

The manuscripts and papers of the composer Alun Hoddinott (1929-2008) are a treasure trove for future researchers, holding a wealth of material comprising manuscript scores, scrapbooks, concert programmes and a large body of correspondence.

The scrapbooks in particular (some 60 in total), spanning the years 1941-2007, record his life from an early age, the contents of the earliest volume, 1941-1954, having been ‘collected by a ‘doting’ mother!’ They reflect the various aspects of his work as composer, teacher, writer, adjudicator and festival director, and include reviews of performances of his works, concert programmes, radio listings, visits and tours abroad, competitions, various festivals – notably the Cardiff Festival of Music of which he was co-founder, and all this in addition to his career as lecturer and later Professor of Music at Cardiff University.

Alun and Rhiannon Hoddinott's wedding day

Whilst giving an overall insight into his life and work, one also notes the significant events that helped shape his life, both on a personal and professional level. For example his mother’s scrapbook records his marriage in April 1953 to Rhiannon Huws, who’d been a fellow student at Cardiff and who was to become central to every aspect of his life. Also amongst his papers are innumerable letters from fellow-musicians and friends testifying to the Hoddinotts’ generous and exceptional hospitality.

Concert programme signed by Sir John Barbirolli

The same scrap-book records his first major success as a composer when, at the 1954 Cheltenham Festival, Gervase de Peyer gave the first public performance of his Concerto no. 1 for clarinet and string orchestra with the Hallé Orchestra, under Sir John Barbirolli. This gave the young composer a national profile and started the long string of commissions by leading orchestras and soloists that continued throughout his life.

The Alun Hoddinott Archive is currently being catalogued.

Barbara Davies

When Sir Kyffin Williams, Art Master at Highgate from 1944-73, died in 2006, much of his artwork was left to the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.

Amongst the items in the Kyffin Williams Bequest were some 250 pictures produced by pupils while Kyffin was working in north London.  They had been stored in Kyffin’s home in Pwllfanogl on the shores of the Menai Straits.  David Smith, Head of Physics at Highgate, selected the pictures with the assistance of Lona Mason and Iwan Dafis. The loan of the pupil artwork from the Bequest was arranged and facilitated by Iwan Dafis, Exhibitions Officer.

Kyffin Williams, self portrait

Roughly half of the pictures had names on, and about 25 of those names belonged to Old Cholmeleians (OCs – i.e. alumni of the school) that the school had contact details for.

Also included in the loan mature works that Kyffin owned by his more successful pupils, including Anthony Green RA, and the late Patrick Procktor RA.  The OCs concerned were contacted and asked to provide memories of their art teacher for use as captions.  The response to the news that their early artistic efforts had resurfaced after so long was uniformly one of surprise and delight.

Michael Delaney writes:

‘Kyffin allowed small groups of us to go to Highgate Cemetery and I really enjoyed those afternoons when we actually worked quite hard and took it all quite seriously.  I can’t remember how we managed to slip into the Cemetery but we found a way at the top end.  The technique I used on the drawing was very much Kyffin’s – one I have never seen since.  The wooden end of a brush was sharpened and used that as a pen for our ink drawings. It had the advantage that one could control the weight of line much more easily than with a conventional nib and could give the equivalent of a ‘dry-brush’ mark on the paper.

Kyffin was delightful and he always encouraged his pupils and gave sound advice and inspirational ideas.  We all appreciated his helpfulness and I don’t think he ever had any difficulty in keeping order.  He had many amusing anecdotes about the great artists and to be taught art history was both entertaining and interesting.  At the time I hadn’t appreciated just how good he was.

I last saw him about ten years ago when he received the Cymmrodorion Medal for outstanding contribution to Wales at the University of Bangor.  It is the highest accolade that the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion can award and is considered as one of the premier awards in Wales.  The Society’s patron is HRH The Prince of Wales and only 28 medals have been awarded in its 250 year history.  It was very good to chat to Kyffin again and he really hadn’t changed much, just a little older.’

A large audience, numbering several of the youthful artists, now in their 60s and 70s, saw Dr Paul Joyner, Head of Purchasing and Donations at the NLW, formally open the exhibition on 3 November 2011.  Further talks by Procktor biographer, Ian Massey, and Suffolk-based artist, David Porteous-Butler (a former Kyffin pupil), highlighted different aspects of Kyffin’s importance as a life-changing teacher.

David Smith, Head of Physics, Highgate School, London N6 4AY